No longer the irritating fool.
This was the spy.
And I hated this version even more.
The king exhaled, already done with the argument. ‘Michael goes with the prisoner.’
‘He doesn’t need to go anywhere. I—’
‘Just as you have rights to the prisoner you found on foreign ground, I have a right to enforce conditions. Unless you’d prefer to take it to the Council?’
I clenched my jaw. ‘No. It’s fine.’
Michael would regret makingthings difficult.
Willow
I stood in the foyer waiting for Ava and one of her shadow siblings. Either one could take us to Fogoyan castle, but I sincerely hoped it wasn’t that bloody idiot. It was like the more I pushed him away, the more he tried to keep me around. A masochist, perhaps. Or he enjoyed seeing my misery. The reckoning that’d come the moment my powers returned would serve as a life lesson.
Then I heard it. The annoying baritone of his voice as he chatted with my younger sister on the way downstairs.
She laughed at something he said, oblivious to how stupid he sounded.
I hoped he’d trip and break his neck.
Just before they reached me, I began wondering why all the meetings with the Council had been taking place in the Fogoyan castle. Wasn’t that a conflict of interest? Just because she had the Fire King pussy-whipped didn’t mean he wouldn’t eventually break my neck out of spite.
We were at war. And I would become the next Ortensian Queen… And I looked a bit too much like his long-time opponent to feel safe in the presence of a man affectionately referred to as a beast. Surely, there ought to be better places to meet.
Still, I stood calmly, beginning to accept my fate as the looming shadow brute placed a hand on either of our shoulders. Ava looked for something in my eyes; I stared back, showing nothing. She didn’t want the throne; she knew what kind of pressure that was. I wasn’t born to rule either. I felt like a fraud.
Whoever wrote that letter was right. I slept with so many men in Ortensia. Our nobles, foreign nobles, foreign princes, and even one or two councilmen.
How could I ever rule?
But should my past define me? Why would my sex life have anything to do with my ability to lead? Because really, that was all it was, wasn’t it? Managing people and land.
And politics.
And the never-ending conflicts.
And the increasingly rebellious population.
Did the Elder really mean it last time when he said some of them want somebody new entirely on the throne?
Traitors. I could be good to them… once I learnt how to.
‘Are you okay?’ Ava asked quietly as we made our way toward the conference room. I could tell she meant well, so I reined in the need for a scalding retort.
Things weren’t so bad between us lately. I wondered what it would be like when I took over Ortensia. Would she ever visit?
She’d probably stay away… and I would never see her again.
‘Yeah, fine. You?’ was all I could force out.
She nodded, looking ahead, as if searching for something. Or someone.
I looked directly at her. Earlier in the kitchen with the curtain covering the window and dim lights, she didn’t look quite as… compromised. The bags under her eyes stayed dark, and really, they seemed to be a permanent feature now. She looked dreadful and had done for quite some time. Something was wrong with her, but even if I asked, I doubted she’d tell me.
